Klee Connections for Piano

Klee Connections for Piano was composed in February 2013. It works by connections being formed between superimposed variants of very simple rhythmic and harmonic series. Some of these connections are made by the composer – using them as a means of developing basic material – and by the listener who may well perceive patterns that weren’t deliberately put there, but which arise out of the interactions of these elements. For example, the sequences, inversions and cadence-like configurations that are often suggested are, to a greater or lesser extent, coincidental or even ‘accidental’.

This is something that the painter Paul Klee made use of in his work: interactions between lines or shapes often give rise to configurations that are not independently drawn and/or which have an aspect of familiarity.

Although this work is written in a post-tonal idiom the word series is used here not in the sense of ‘twelve-tone’ or serial music. An alternative might have been sequence, but of course, that too has a musical definition that would, in this context, be even more misleading.